Nurses, class-4 staff accuse MS of issuing backdated guidelines

AMRITSAR: Even as a magisterial inquiry is on into incident of swapping of two bodies of covid-19 victims at Amritsar Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) last week, staff nurses and Class-4 staff have accused the medical superintendent (MS) Dr Raman Sharma of issuing back-dated guidelines to deflect blame.

The MS has issued norms for management of bodies and distributed duties of doctors, staff nurses and Class-4 employees for the disposal of covid-19 victims’ bodies on July 20 (the incident happened on July 17). He, however, mentions the date as June 20, while putting his signature on it. HT has a copy of the letter with two dates of July 20 and June 20.

“The June signature was a clerical mistake and the document was released on July 20 with the additional point of clicking photos of bodies with face uncovered and their identification tag visible. The other guidelines were being followed since June,” said the MS. As per the guidelines of Punjab government, a body management committee was to be formed in state GMCs to handle bodies of Covid-19 victims, but no such committee was formed at the Amritsar GMCH, the staff has claimed.

The nursing staff and Class-4 employees of the hospital, however, alleged that the document has been signed in backdate to show seniors and government that the hospital is following these rules since June and to find a scapegoat among staff nurses and Class-4 employees. Already, the GMCH has written a letter to the state medical education and research department to suspend four staff members in handling the bodies.

President of Punjab Nursing Association, Amritsar, Narinder Bhuttar, said on Thursday, “The MS signed the document in backdate to show that Class-4 employees and staff nurses are responsible, but no doctor was present in the mortuary, during the tagging of bodies, due to which the incident happened.”